Published: October 12, 2013

Corner Office

Four Executives on Succeeding in Business as a Woman

By ADAM BRYANT

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Clockwise from top left, Lisa Price, president of Carol’s Daughter, a beauty products company; Marjorie Kaplan, Group president at Animal Planet; Amy Schulman, general counsel at Pfizer; and Doreen Lorenzo,
president of Quirky. Gender inequality at work is “still an issue,” Ms. Lorenzo says. “It’s not better. There’s still a glass ceiling.”

When I started the Corner Office column more than four years and about 250 interviews ago, I set several guidelines for the conversations I would have with top executives about leadership.

I was going to pursue, for example, a diverse mix of voices, in terms of age, race, nationality and the kind of organizations they led. I would also interview a lot of women, though I planned never to ask them
any gender-related questions. My thinking was simply to interview leaders who happened to be women, rather than focus on the fact that they were women leaders.

But a few things have happened. The vigorous debates started by Sheryl Sandberg, with her “Lean In” book, and by
Anne-Marie Slaughter, with her provocative article, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All”
in The Atlantic, suggest that we are not even close to being done with the gender conversation (though Janet Yellen’s nomination to lead the Fed is certainly a noteworthy milestone). I’ve also
kept in touch with many of the women I’ve interviewed over the years, and I’ve heard from them a growing frustration with the stubbornly low number of women in executive suites.

Given that the arguments surrounding work-life balance have been so fully voiced, I decided to take a different tack, and add more insights to the discussion of leadership challenges that women face at work,
apart from the juggling act.

So I went back for a second conversation with four women I had interviewed for Corner Office, to ask them to share stories about headwinds they have navigated over the years, and advice they would offer other
women about succeeding at work.

Amy Schulman

Amy Schulman, named president of Pfizer Nutrition in 2010, increased revenue 15 percent, to $2.1 billion, over the following year, when the division was sold to Nestl for $11.85 billion.

Q.

What are some patterns you’ve noticed over the years about women at work, and things they could be doing better to advance their careers?

A.

One thing that happens at work is that women tend to hoard favors as if they were airline miles — you know, the hundreds of thousands of airplane miles that we’re saving for when we really need them.
But “when we really need them” may never come. The trips are not going to happen, and we’ll be left with 800,000 airline miles.

There’s a parallel at work. You need to spend political capital — be unafraid to introduce people, compliment somebody when it’s deserved and stand up for something you really believe in, rather
than just go with the flow. I don’t mean being a perennial troublemaker, but it’s about having conviction and courage. Spend that political capital you earn by being intellectually credible, by
being a fighter for the people on your team when appropriate, and by arguing for principles that matter. Those are qualities that give you credit. If you’re waiting for the perfect moment to spend that
capital, you’re going to be sidelined your whole career waiting to just kind of enter the ring.

Women can and should do a better job of helping one another to be in that transactional forum, and to get over the anxiety that we’re going to be found wanting on the wrong side of that equation. We’re
undervaluing the role that we can play in the success of other people and the organization. So don’t be afraid to spend some of that political capital. You have to be well prepared, you have to be smart,
you have to be on time, you have to be responsive, you have to be respectful, you have to have principles. But once you have all those things and you’ve built a track record, don’t wait for the
perfect day.

Q.

Other things you have observed?

A.

There are some things around style that I’ve seen. I’m not a formal person, but I don’t find myself responding very well when there’s an assumption that there will be a connection by
virtue of the fact that we share a gender. If somebody is trying to capitalize on the fact that I have said publicly that I support the advancement of women, and they use that as a proxy to gain access to me,
I find that annoying.

The less subtle way of saying it is that trading on gender, in my mind, is impermissible as a man or a woman. Assuming that you’re entitled to something by virtue of your gender strikes me as not fair or
right. Having said that, there are clearly implicit biases and assumptions that follow you by virtue of your gender and your race. Workplaces need to be aware of those and do something to counterbalance those
as institutions. Leaders need to make sure that the organizations we create, run and drive are receptive to that diversity of voices, in both tone and substance.

Q.

You spent two decades working in law firms before you joined Pfizer. Any observations about the challenges women face that are specific to law firms?

A.

In my early years as a young lawyer, much of what you’re doing falls into the model of traditional female success, which is the “dutiful daughter.” It’s an expression from Adrienne Rich,
and it means essentially “the good girl behind the scenes” — you’re not transgressing the roles that are expected of you. A good law associate is organized, methodical, writes things
that other people sign, prepares draft arguments that other people deliver and is in a kind of perpetual apprenticeship role.

That’s often why law firms and other institutions say, “Gee, we have all these great women in the pipeline,” but then they don’t become partner. Part of that is about whether the women
themselves are able to gracefully transition from being the dutiful daughter to a partner. But do the organizations reward and recognize the full range of behaviors?

Q.

So women and the companies they work for both have to help with that transition?

A.

It has to be both. One problem is that we say to women that you have to claim your voice. Don’t make statements that sound like questions. Don’t be afraid to speak up. Own the room. Speak with confidence.
But to the extent that doesn’t come naturally, women, in an effort to do precisely what they’ve been told, sometimes will over-occupy the space.

Think of all the things that make for a great leader and a great colleague — collegiality, a certain amount of self-effacement, a commitment to the team and the organization — but then we’re
also busy telling young women: Don’t put yourself second. Don’t subordinate yourself. Speak up. If you’re not heard, speak again. We give really mixed messages, and we don’t teach
women exactly how to do that because it’s not very graceful when somebody’s trying to claim a room in a meeting.

What we have to do is teach strategies, because here’s the thing about unwritten languages: whoever owns the language wins the conversation. We need to teach women the difference between a native tongue and
a language. But institutions, conversely, need to be slightly more forgiving if you don’t get the jargon right all the time. That’s where the sweet spot of inclusion comes in.

Q.

You touched on the point of confidence earlier. Can you elaborate?

A.

For many guys, this is simpler because they’re not as over-invested in the question of “Do I belong?” Everything is not a test. If you’re not viewing interactions as a litmus test for
whether you belong, you’re going to act better. On the other hand, if you’re looking all the time for that kind of validation, you’re either going to be self-conscious or insecure, and neither
of those is a recipe for success. What you want is the kind of inherent confidence that leads to grace. You want to be around people who are having fun and enjoying what they’re doing.

Readers' Advice

The Times asked readers to give their advice to women early in their careers. Here are excerpts from a selection of more than 500 responses.

Lisa Price

Lisa Price, the founder of Carol’s Daughter, led the company to its current 100 employees, selling beauty products in 1,600 stores.

Q.

How do you think about the issue of women and leadership in the context of your own career?

A.

What makes my story a little bit different is that I’m the founder of a company. So you start out by yourself and then, if you’re successful and fortunate, your business grows to the point where you
have people coming on board who have different experience and expertise.

So I was sort of placed at the top of the mountain, if you will, and then felt that there were things I needed to learn and develop to feel comfortable sitting there. I used to sit at the table but not necessarily
at the head of the table, because I felt there were things I needed to learn, and I wanted to be part of the team, and sit with the team.

I don’t do that anymore. Now I sit at the head of the table. But I don’t consciously say, “When I walk in the room, I’m going to make sure I’m at the head.” I just sort
of gravitated there naturally, and that’s where I sit, because what I’ve learned is that, regardless of whatever little skill sets here and there that I might not know really well, I do know this
brand better than anybody else. And that’s the authority that I have, that’s the voice that I have to be, and that’s who they need me to be. Because the only person who can teach them the
history and the DNA and the passion and the love and the blood and the sweat and the tears is me.

Q.

Other ways you grew more confident?

A.

The other thing I learned was that sometimes I would play it safe and not say too much in a group setting, for fear of maybe saying the wrong thing or because I wanted to have more private conversations. But what
I realized was that people I didn’t talk to regularly — one-on-one or day-to-day — didn’t know what my vision was, or they thought I was really quiet, and that I wasn’t as
involved.

So I practiced just being more vocal, and making more of a point to go into everybody’s office at some point, sitting down and connecting and talking about what’s going on, so that they know what I
want to do.

Q.

People often wonder about the differences between how men and women lead. What are your thoughts on that?

A.

I have seen a difference, from having male bosses and female bosses, and then running a company and having male and female executives. What I find interesting is that it’s not across the board, as in, men
are this way and women are that way. I’ve had women who can be very curt — “This is how we’re going to do it.” And then I’ve seen men who can be very nurturing. So I’ve
seen both sides of it.

What I have noticed is that men can have a real serious debate about something and sound like they’re just going at it, and you think they’re going to walk out of the room angry at each other. And
they go get a sandwich, and they’re fine. They don’t take it to heart. Women don’t do that. If we’re going at it, there might not be conversation for a couple of days, until the dust
settles.

Q.

Anything else you’ve noticed in terms of the difference between men and women at work?

A.

One of the mistakes I’ve definitely seen women make is crying. And I’m an emotional person. I understand where the tears come from. And being a founder of a beauty company, I sometimes can have the
luxury to get teary when I’m speaking passionately about something.

However, when you’re speaking to your boss or your manager about an issue, and you’re feeling overwhelmed, crying is not a good thing to do, because you don’t necessarily know how it’s
being perceived by the person to whom you’re speaking. I know from personal experience that the stigma never goes away. And you are enforcing a stereotype, unfortunately, that women are weak, and they’re
not as tough as men.

The other thing that can happen is that if your boss is a woman, you might think you can cry in front of her because she’s a woman, and assume that she’s going to understand. Maybe something is happening
at home — you have a family member who’s ill, or you’re stressed — and you have a moment, and you break down in their office. That’s O.K. But when it comes to a work-related
issue, and you start to cry, it just comes across as really weak and not good.

When someone’s done that in front of me, I feel that there’s a phoniness in it. I think it’s because I am a woman. So it’s a little bit of “I know how this works. Don’t
do this. I know this game.” Women know how tears affect certain people. Very few men will cry to get something that they want. There are some really snaky guys, but it’s not something that a man
will typically do.

Q.

So how have you handled this when people have done this with you?

A.

As much as it angered me, there was one person who was crying, and I didn’t want to be heartless and just jump all over them. So I would talk to them about it later: “Please do not ever do that again.
If you’re that emotional about it, wait to speak, so that doesn’t happen.” I’m O.K. with people having a shaky voice. Sometimes that happens. You’re having a difficult conversation,
and your voice might get quivery. But don’t cry. Just wait to have the conversation. You don’t want to be known as that person, because then people are afraid to have a difficult conversation with
you because they think, “Oh, she might cry.”

Doreen Lorenzo

Doreen Lorenzo, now at Quirky, expanded Frog Design, a privately held innovation consulting firm, from a staff of 200 in 2006 to 1,200 global employees in 11 locations globally.

Q.

How do you answer the question of whether women lead differently than men?

A.

I think women by their nature have better instincts and better intuition.

I also think women are better at team dynamics, because they don’t have to be the alpha all the time. There’s a whole set of soft skills with people dynamics, and women have a really good sense of
how to get people to cooperate and work together.

Q.

Whereas with men ... ?

A.

I’ve worked with plenty of truly collaborative men, but I’ve also encountered those who weren’t, and in those instances, they tended to take on an alpha-male dynamic. That’s where you
see the jockeying. I find that if men feel they can’t be the alpha, that’s when the fist-pounding and the chest-thumping and all sorts of stuff happens. You can watch it escalate so that people
get their way, and that’s a form of bullying. A lot of that goes on in the workplace today.

Q.

How did you overcome any gender-related roadblocks in your career?

A.

I ignored everything. I never wanted gender to be a reason I did anything or was successful, and so I ignored it all. I just plowed ahead. But I look at our daughters and women, and they’re still struggling,
and I’ve decided I’ve got to talk about this more because it’s still an issue. It’s not better. There’s still a glass ceiling.

Q.

Why do you think that is?

A.

In certain instances, there’s still this mentality of an old-boy network. For them, money and power defines them. It’s who plays golf with you. Business is still very much done that way. You’re
still fighting uphill odds.

Q.

Other thoughts on why things don’t seem to change?

A.

Girls are taught to be cooperative more than boys. I don’t think girls get the tools they need in school to get that self-assuredness. In high school, girls want to be part of the tribe, so they’re
not stepping out of line. The boys are often the jocks, with much more bravado.

We still don’t encourage girls to speak up, to use their voice, to use their instinct, to not be afraid, and teach them how to combat the bullying. How do you trust your inner soul? We don’t address
that at all in school. You have to believe in yourself, but I think many women don’t. And you watch some men just take advantage of that.

Q.

You said you ignored any gender-related headwinds during your career. Were there moments that were hard to ignore?

A.

In some situations, with certain types of men, they try to undermine you with jabs. What I’ve seen, especially with some young women, is they’ll fold. They can get very emotional. When I was 35, a
woman told me, “Don’t let your emotions get in the way.” That was really good advice, because if you take emotion out of it, you begin to look at everything objectively. You begin to see
the remarks for what they really are, and the people for who they are. There’s a lot of corporate game-playing that goes on.

Q.

What kind of jabs did you hear?

A.

“You’re really creative. Do you understand math?” “You’re more of a touchy-feely person. What do you know about business?” Another was: “You’ve never done
this before. I don’t know that you can pull this off.”

Q.

Hard not to take that kind of stuff personally.

A.

I think in my 20s, I couldn’t have done that. In my 30s, I could say to myself: “That’s interesting. Do I actually believe that about myself?” Then you can be objective about the comment.
I’m not perfect at everything. I know there are faults, but let’s be constructive about what needs to get fixed versus what doesn’t need to be fixed.

Q.

You ran Frog Design, the innovation consulting firm, for many years until joining Quirky recently as president. What did you do at Frog to set the tone?

A.

We have women’s groups within Frog. They’ll meet after work, and they’ll pick a topic. They might talk about how you overcome certain situations, and give people encouragement and real-life
stories so they can feel like there’s strength in numbers.

There’s a lot of talking about being able to have their voices heard in a room where there are a lot of strong males. If you’re treated like a secretary, what can you do? What are the steps you can
take? Part of it is saying: “We’re going to end the conversation now until you listen to me. If you can’t listen to different opinions, we shouldn’t be having this meeting.”

You have control. You have power. Don’t be afraid to use it. I think what happens with women is that it’s unnerving to rock the boat. But if you say that the conversation is over, then you stop people
in their tracks, because nobody wants to be thought of like that. Stop and make people think. The people at Frog are more enlightened, but some people can fall into old habits. You have to stop and make people
think.

Q.

At Frog, you spent a lot of time flying around the world to meet with corporate clients. Let’s say you walk into a big boardroom, and everyone at the table is a guy. How do you handle it if you’re
picking up bad signals?

A.

Some people will start picking up their phones and not paying attention to you. That’s very common. What you have to do is just engage with the person at the top immediately. If you look somebody in the eye,
it’s really hard for them to dart side-to-side. So I’ll use an icebreaker — about their family, what they like to do outside of work — and I’ll engage them on that level. It’s
not catching them off-guard; it’s engaging them at a human level as opposed to the bravado side that often comes with work.

Marjorie Kaplan

Marjorie Kaplan repositioned Animal Planet with hits like “River Monsters” and “Whale Wars” that helped it become a Top 20 cable channel with men.

Q.

Any moments early in your career that surprised you in terms of how you were treated by men in the workplace?

A.

I was in a brand-new job, working on a consulting team. We walked into a large conference room to meet with the client. There was a big conference table, with six guys around it. Smoking was still allowed back then,
and half of them were smoking cigars.

My boss walked in ahead of me and I was far behind him, so there wasn’t an opportunity for me to walk up to the guys around the table and introduce myself. The moment was lost, and the meeting was starting.
But I was never introduced. I was probably 25 or 26, and my boss was significantly older. I think they all thought I was his girlfriend. I sat in that meeting the whole time with these guys smoking cigars, practically
with their feet on the table. That was so humiliating. He didn’t do it maliciously, but it was kind of casual sexism. I resolved that wasn’t going to happen again, and I have told people that you
need to be comfortable challenging those kinds of assumptions.

Q.

What are some other assumptions you’ve noticed?

A.

I’ve had what I think were very common experiences for women as I was coming up, which is the assumption that a guy who walks into a room wearing a suit was smart and able, and a woman was “to be determined.”
People in the room had to be disabused of their assumption that the man would be capable and intelligent, and it had to be proven that the woman was as able. It was just kind of a feeling that you had all the
time.

Q.

Any patterns you’ve seen in the workplace that suggest differences between how men and women handle certain situations?

A.

I’ve seen both men and women who are uncomfortable with conflict, but I think it’s particularly true of women. It can be a challenge for women in a work environment because sometimes you don’t
agree. Sometimes people behave in a way that makes you uncomfortable. You have to review people, and that’s challenging if you don’t like conflict. I’ve seen circumstances where the kind
of feedback that a woman will give is quite different than the feedback the man understands. I’ve had circumstances myself where I’ve felt like I was being very clear about what I expected, and
then I suddenly realized, wait a minute, this guy is not getting what I’m saying.

Q.

Why do you think that is?

A.

Gender stereotypes are always challenging, but I do think that in general women are more “other focused.” That’s a real value in business, and without a doubt it’s been one of the reasons
for the success we’ve had. Certainly I am other-focused. I’m very attuned to body language and getting what people are saying even when it’s not verbalized. The flip side is that you often
have to be really direct with guys — if you’re not saying it to them, they’re not hearing it.

Management is the hardest job. Everybody, myself included, needs coaching on managing. Again, I’m generalizing, but because women are thoughtful about people, sometimes the process of managing and providing
constructive feedback becomes very lengthy. There’s lots of conversation about who the person is as a person and what’s really troubling them. It can go very deep into their lives. While that can
be helpful sometimes, at other times it’s useful to just be clear — this is the expectation, this is a job, and here’s what you need to be able to do.

It’s not always helpful to understand the person so well that you know why they’re not doing the job. If you tend to be very aware of other people’s feelings and motivations, there’s
a lot of identifying and understanding and discussion about that. Sometimes you can spend a lot of psychic and emotional energy on something, when it might be easier to just say: “Look, here’s
the line. You’ve got to make it across this line or you’re not going to be able to stay here.”

Q.

Any other surprising moments you’ve had later in your career that stemmed from the fact that you’re a woman?

A.

I’ve had people say to me, “I wonder if you’re too nice.” Some of that is because I’m a woman. What I have said in response is: “I am nice. And I want to be nice. There’s
not such a thing as ‘too nice.’ But my expectations are high, and people do rise to my expectations. That’s how I manage. I don’t manage based on fear. I manage based on expectations.”

It’s easy for women to be read as too nice, too kind. But it’s important to be able to make that choice. One of the values that I — as a person and as a woman — bring to the workplace
is that I want to be nice at work. Niceness and kindness are not the opposite of ambition and drive. It is powerful to choose to be nice.

Q.

Going back to that first incident you described, when you weren’t introduced at the meeting: What is your advice to women about handling a situation like that?

A.

First of all, if it happens to you, remember it, because you will have the opportunity to make sure it doesn’t happen to somebody else. The other is to arm yourself before it happens, so that you’re
ready to walk into that room and insist on the introduction. When it happened to me, I was floored, because I did not grow up in a world like that. Knowing that it could happen, be ready for it. Make sure you’re
introduced. Do what a guy would do automatically. The third thing is to address it after the fact. It’s O.K. to go to the person who should have introduced you and say: “I did not feel comfortable
about this. I’d like to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”